The best ideas are stolen. - 11 September 2026
This week's thread Creativity rarely starts with a blank page. More often than not, it starts with something you’ve seen somewhere else. Creativity copies is...
We don't want the best option. We want the easiest one. - 4 September 2026
This week's thread We claim to want the best, but we consistently choose the path of least resistance over the optimal outcome. From Google searches to...
Astonishment and confusion are not the same thing. - 28 August 2026
This week's thread This week I spoke to a magician whose job, just like marketers', is to capture and hold attention. When a magician fails, the failure is...
Innovation is more than just another app - 21 August 2026
This week's thread Most shopping receipts end up in the bin. But what if they were turned into a fun competition? This is exactly what the Taiwanese...
Storytelling has not changed in millennia - 7 August 2026
This week's thread John Yorke taught a generation of British television writers how stories work. We think we live in an age of unprecedented change and...
When efficiency shows up as a bad user experience - 31 July 2026
This week's thread The marketing world is obsessed with seamlessness. We remove clicks, reduce steps, and iron out every wrinkle. However, the concept of...
Some of our most cherished beliefs started as ads. - 24 July 2026
This week's thread We tend to think of marketing as a cultural mirror. But sometimes it's the other way round. This is the idea of Culture Shaped by...
What can marketers learn from police detectives? - 17 July 2026
This week's thread TV detectives are a lie. The lone genius, the flash of insight, the convenient confession. Real investigative work is something else...
What People Tell You Is (Sometimes) An Illusion - 10 July 2026
This week's thread You run a survey. The results look clear. But the findings do not quite stack up with what you see in the real world. This is a classic...
When Culture Is Sponsored By A Corporation - 3 July 2026
This week's thread The Tour de France. Bacon for breakfast. The word 'jaywalking'. These things feel like permanent fixtures of our world. But they are not...
Value isn't fixed. It's framed - 26 June 2026
This week's thread We think value is objective. A simple calculation of features against cost. But in reality value is constructed, with the context...
What can marketers learn from video game developers? - 19 June 2026
This week's thread Earlier this week I spoke to Rami Ismail, an independent game developer and consultant who has spent his career thinking about how to hold...
The Human Flaw in the Perfect Dataset - 12 June 2026
This week's thread A Wimbledon semi-final grinds to a halt. Not because of rain, but because a human operator switched off the infallible line-calling...
The Invisible Architecture of Choice - 5 June 2026
This week's thread We like to think we are rational actors. But our decisions are often made for us, long before we're aware of the choice. The culprit is...
The case for solving problems sideways - 29 May 2026
This week's thread We tend to tackle problems head-on. If sales are down, we run a discount. If a behaviour persists, we try to ban it. This directness can...